


Possession

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Erotica, F/M, I'll never be over this ship, Kissing, Older Man/Younger Woman, Smut, do you really want to be normal?, erotic angst, malnessa, malnessa feels, oral loveliness, up against a wall, you can schedule your malnessa intervention for me but I won't come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-06 00:13:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15874590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: She has found contentment beneath him. . .  Yearning for possession is anathema, and yet, she discovers now it plucks a pleasing chord. With him, it is different. With him, she has found the perfect fit for all her broken places to abide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What started as a little drabble ended up as something way longer than anticipated, so I broke it up into two chapters. I am in so deep, drowning in this ship. . . please feel free to comment and as always thank you so very much for taking the time to read. xoxo.

 

She’s been to church, and now she roams, in search of a fragile thing so elusive she cannot even name it.

Old habits die hard.

That is, if they die at all.

She’s said her prayers and spoken to the priest. She’s lit a candle. She’s inhaled the musty fragrance of velvet tapestries and hymnals mingled with melting wax. She’s walked back up the aisle and anointed her forehead with holy water from the great, marble cistern in the very rear of the chapel. They are familiar gestures of normalcy, or gestures she performs that the normal might feel familiar again.

She finds it works precious little.

Perhaps she has never known normalcy.

It almost causes her to laugh out loud, as she touches her damp fingers to her forehead and genuflects, but she’s only so recently shaken off the mantle of insanity. She bites back the impulse to give in to hilarity. She finds herself unready to return to even palest shades of behavior that might paint her in such a theme as to be hung in a gallery of lunacy. Laughable though it might be, a holy water tinted guffaw would absolutely not appear normal, not even to the stone statuary or gargoyles that gaze down upon her. Their severe faces remind her of how the men kept watch around her bed as she writhed in her demonic agony. Their faces, shifting in shape and shadow but ever present, like phases of the moon. Her boys. Her man.

The vision sobers her, but she steps from the church with a smile and wanders through winter only to discover she’s not so keen on being normal after all. Sane, yes. But something about normalcy seems not just elusive, but also undesirable.

There was nothing normal about waking in his bed that morning. The sheets twisted around her arms and ankles like shackles, but a down-filled quilt neatly covered and warmed her from the biting winter air. He must have placed it over her before taking his leave. He’d excused himself before she’d even regained consciousness, of course. Ever the gentleman. It would have been awkward for them otherwise, and that would not have been fitting for Sir Malcom’s stately form or function.

Reluctant to leave his bed, she’d rolled onto her stomach, pressed her face into his pillow, and sought his scent. When she found it, she held the cushion fast to her face and kept it there for some time. She floated atop his fragrance, longing for him to return to the bed, to roll her back over and to cloak her with his large, firm form. Or perhaps he might not roll her over at all, but lie against her backside, open her legs with a nudge of his knee and take her like that, from behind.

He filled her nostrils and danced through channels of her mind, way back to most ancient memories which could not be remembered. There was something trapped under the faint remembrance of his shaving soap, beneath the warm essence of leather, and woven into the embers of smoke he’d left behind. But she could not quite place it. And he did not return.

Lying there, she’d longed again for his touch. She’d risen with a frustrated frown, filled with a confused consternation which she’s carried on her travels throughout the day.

She has found contentment beneath him, and this is not normal either, not for the tigress who forever savored her prey from above. Yearning for possession is anathema, and yet, she discovers now it plucks a pleasing chord.

She strides through the snow back into town. The city grows bright, even as night grips it with its sudden violet-gloved fist, as it does this time of year. Never ever has Vanessa Ives feared the darkness, indeed night has served as her closest confidante for many years. But there is something cheerful about twinkling lights as they bounce and play off the snow in contrast with deepening sky. The lights remind her of the way his eyes had welcomed her into his room when she had knocked, so soft and tentative.

Though he was prepared for bed, he had invited her into his room.

For a moment, so relieved had they been to see one another, it seemed they had almost forgotten their grief.

“I do not want to be alone,” she had mumbled into the silk of his dressing gown. He had lifted her face to gaze up into his, and she found his eyes sparkled clear as once they had when she was a child.

“Nor do I,” he had responded. He had caressed her neck and back as he offered to take his couch and let her sleep in his bed, but her hands had already been untying the cord at the waist of his robe. In the end, their gentle uncertainty had provided comfort for them both.

She’s neglected to mention this transgression in the course of her religious atonement, she realizes now as she weaves in and out of the flickering gas lamps that line the streets.

Down an alley she slips, and then turns to take another, and another, losing herself in this urban maze as once she found herself lost (but not lost) in quite another labyrinth of leaves. The wind whispers through the man made caverns as it rushes past her trying to find its way out to sea, or to the moors, trying to find its way to great open spaces where it can blow wild and huge and free. She understands this need, this course of nature. It frightens her even less than darkness does as she has found with understanding there comes comfort and in comfort there is no need for fear.

Perhaps that is why when he presses her roughly, from behind, into the wall of a nearby building, she knows naught of terror, and she smiles.

“A woman on her own should be more careful,” he says gruffly in her ear, His hat knocks against hers. His beard scratches her cheek. “Shall I have to start sending Sembene along with you to ensure your safety?” His breath is hot on her flesh and visible in the frigid air.

She makes no move, but chuckles shortly. “Don’t be foolish. I seem to have done just fine on my own thus far.” She submits to the pressure he exerts on her back with his chest and arms, nothing hard or painful, but steady and increasing. Her hands drop to her sides and she leans back against him even as he presses into her.

“You solitary creature, you. What are you doing out here by yourself anyway?”

“I’ve been to church. And I am walking. You mustn’t worry.”

“Mmmh,” He sighs and her skin prickles at the vibrations of his voice. He’s brought an arm around her waist, and with his other hand he grabs a hand that lies limp at her hip. Instantly, he utters a grumble of frustration as their gloved hands meet. He tears off his glove, does the same with hers, and then resumes the holding of her waist and hand. Once free of their glove, her fingers feel the sting of frigid night, but in the next moment they are wrapped in the caress of his palm, which is wondrously warm. Still, she’s not moved, but allows him to manipulate her, like a doll. He brings her hand to his face, mashes it to his lips and moans. His arm tightens around her waist. He rotates her fingers until he can place one of her fingertips on his tongue. He laps at it as though it is a cube of sugar. “I could take you right here,” he whispers.

“Do it,” she hisses, and tilts her head back to nip at whatever of him she can reach, in this case, a patch of his bearded chin. He turns her around in his arms so she faces him. One hand gloved, one hand not, he caresses her face. He admires her with curiosity that is reverent, but severe. Her eyes meet and challenge his. “Won’t you?”

“No,” he says. He lowers his face as though he is about to kiss her, but pauses just above her face. He considers her intently. “Here you are,” he says.

“I am here,” she replies.

“Yes, you are here, and yet,” he murmurs with a gentle nuzzle of his forehead against hers. “Even as I hold you in my own arms I wonder, was last night a dream?”

“It was no dream,” Vanessa says. He brushes his bare thumb over her lower lip. She flicks her tongue out to taste the tang of his flesh, and his eyes roll back in tandem with an exhalation she feels against her face. She leans closer, eager to feel his mouth meet hers, but he continues to hold her at bay.

“You would kiss me?” He asks with half a grin.

“Yes,” she insists.

“Ah, it is a strange thing,” he sighs. “It seems whatever is left of my shredded soul has sought you all day long, and now that I have you here, in my arms, pressed up against this wall, I cannot seem to tear my eyes away from yours. Have they always been so blue?”

“You tease me?”

“No. I am in earnest,” he says and at last he lowers his face and kisses her. He surprises and thrills her with the softness of his lips as they meet hers. She jumps inside herself. His nose is cold against her face, but his mouth burns on her cheek, her jaw, her neck. He claws a bit at the lace collar that covers most of the flesh on her throat where his lips want to be, and contents himself with her earlobe. His teeth click against her pearl and onyx earring. Part of Vanessa puzzles at his restraint, but a deeper part of her sighs in contentment that she will not rut in an alley in a depraved fashion that might tempt other forces to seize and commandeer her psyche. He feels the smile spread over her lips as they kiss and breaks from her slightly to examine her face.

“You quite take my breath away,” she says.

“I find that hard to believe,” he responds with a humble dip of his head. He continues to hold her face in his hands as he contemplates her face. “I’m so much older now, Vanessa, and you are still in the prime of your days.”

 _And yet our broken pieces seem to fit together without a seam, and make us strong_ , she thinks but does not say aloud.

She shivers and holds him fast, her arms hardly making it all the way around his bulky, woolen coat. “You’re cold,” he says against her ear. “Shall we head for home?”

“Yes,” she says, although she’s not cold. His attentions have heated her through her core. He steps away from her and clears his throat. They replace their gloves and make their way out of the alley.

“My carriage is this way,” he says, leading her with a wave of his hand. They walk side by side, but not arm in arm, and under Vanessa’s furrowed brow she is deciding whether or not to be upset by the necessary distance they must observe. Again she considers whether or not she should have included something about her relations with Sir Malcolm in her confession, but there seems an almost otherworldly nature to this thing they are sharing; it seems almost impossible to qualify in words. Try though she may, she cannot find ways to describe the goodness of their comfort shared, how in their joining of flesh the burdens of their souls seeps away and there is a light, even in their darkest grief.

He feels it too. She can tell.

The carriage clatters toward home. She watches his fingers twitch on the head of his cane. She senses his yearning for her flesh. There is a most primitive part of her that hears the quickening of his pulse, that smells desire thicken his breath, that causes her muscles to quiver in response. She peeks up at him, but shadows occlude his face. She finds it does not matter; she feels everything she needs to know. If she tilts her face a certain way, she can still smell the leather of his gloves on her skin.

She wonders what of her he has carried with him on his skin throughout this day, but she does not ask.

“I’ve given Sembene the evening off,” he says and smiles softly as he opens the door to the enormous, brick house. His tone is so filled with delicate hope that when the sudden and savage fire clenches in Vanessa’s gut as she steps over the threshold, it is quite a surprise. She doubles over, gasps in something that is not quite pain, but more of an ethereal torture. “My dear!” Sir Malcolm grabs her before she collapses. His concerned face is the last thing she sees before losing consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

When she awakes, she is on the sofa before the fire. He’s sits near. “How long have I been out?” She asks.

“Not long,” he answers. “Part of an hour. What happened?” He helps her sit up a bit and hands her a glass of brandy. She sips and takes comfort in the warmth that spreads through her. She returns the glass to him and he sets it on the table so he might take her hand.

“I’m not certain,” she says. She scans her body, but it is all her own. No other entity inhabits her thoughts or muscles or words. She offers him a smile to assuage his stricken countenance.

“Shall I call the doctor?”

“No. Please. Forgive me for startling you. I believe I am all right.”

“Vanessa,” he begins with a shake of his head. “I am a wealthy man. What I lack in heart and scruples, I possess surplus in riches- houses, property, art. What I own could provide pleasant enough furbishing for a pharaoh’s tomb. It matters little. I’d trade it all for a pocket full of moments with Mina and Peter.” He pauses and swallows hard. He squeezes her hand and looks away to toss back a tumbler full of amber elixir. “Gladys won’t even look at me, and doesn’t want me in the same county as her.”

“Oh, Malcolm. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be sorry. She was right. We were never happy. I lived a life that never satisfied me. I was forever running away because I could not learn how to manage contentment where I stood. But it took losing all to understand what it was I had. I am backed by even more foolishness than gold. And when you collapsed, well, for a moment I feared fate saw fit to steal you from me as well.” He frowns and works his jaw. Vanessa cannot decide if he looks angry or bereft. He heaves a shaking sigh. “I would give it all. All the rest of it. Every brick of every estate, every splinter of every forest and orchard, every scrap of canvas that bears a famous name. None of it matters if I don’t have you.” He ends his fierce speech by crushing her against his breast. She hears his heart race.

“I am well. Please be at ease.” She kisses his cheek. “It’s just. . . this house. Malcolm, it is not safe. It does not want me here. I know that must sound crazy, but I feel it! When I walked inside, it was like a malevolent force was trying to push me out.” She throws her body back against his and he holds her tight. She feels tears come hot and angry. He kisses her cheeks, her forehead, and her lips as her body shakes with crying. He brushes the hair off of her face and presses his mouth over each of her eyes which are clenched shut and dripping with their tears. She opens them to find him licking his lips, savoring the salt of her sorrow.

“You don’t sound crazy, Vanessa,” he says. “We can go anywhere. I know half a dozen languages; I’ll teach you! I’ll take you anyplace you want, wherever you will feel safe. Where shall we go? Somewhere warm and sunny? Or somewhere with cafes and music where I can dance with you in my arms all night? Where can I take you? Hmm?”

Into his eyes, she pours her gaze, and she does not hesitate for a moment. “Right now I want you to take me to your bed,” she says hoarsely, a pale hand on either side of his bearded face.

She rises first and he follows her to the staircase. They do not speak as they climb to his rooms. She says nothing as he opens his door and allows her passage to his inner sanctum. He utters no syllable as she walks before the fire and turns her back to him.

He takes in the long trail of buttons that line the column of her spine, and his task becomes clear. Silently, his fingers set to the work of freeing her from the black lace which embraces her body so he might clothe himself in her. At the touch of his fingers finally making contact with her skin, she inhales sharply and quivers. He puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes the dress over the front of her. She tugs the sleeves off and pulls it down over her chemise and petticoats, then steps neatly out of it. He puts his hands on her waist and feels how small she is, but he does not linger long on this thought as his mouth finds the flesh of her shoulder most inviting.

Typically, Sir Malcolm Murray makes an elaborate and exact ritual of undressing himself. Every piece of wardrobe has a place where it rests at the end of the day. But when Vanessa turns sharply in his arms and devours him in a kiss, he finds he does not care a whit that she pushes off his coat and it falls in a heap on the floor. Nor does he particularly mind that she is far less delicate with the buttons on his shirt than he was with her dress, and as she pulls fiercely on them several pop off and go clattering across the floor. “Easy, easy,” he says as her hands find the waist of his trousers, but not because he is concerned with the wellbeing of his garment. No. He has found himself achingly hard and dangerously close to releasing right there in his pants if she continues this breakneck pace.

She stands on her tiptoes and bites his neck. She sucks and licks and kisses hard until she forgets to breathe. But when she stops to catch her breath, she realizes she does not want to taste his blood. She wants to feel the warmth of his skin against her. She aches for it. She fights to breathe for it. She finds herself weeping for it.

“My dear, why are you crying?”

“Because I want you so terribly.”

He leads her to the bed and pushes her gently to sit on the edge of it. With slow and deliberate hands, he continues to undress her. He strips her of her skirts and tosses them over a chair. He slides her feet out of their shoes and runs his hands up her legs to the tops of her stockings, which he then peels down over her thighs, knees, ankles and feet. For a moment he holds one of her feet in his hand, and finding it cool to the touch, he rubs it to warm it, then kisses the top of it. He repeats this with the other foot, then positions himself on his knees in between Vanessa’s legs. She watches him kiss her inner thighs and rub his hands up into her undergarments to find the skin of her hips and ass. With a touch that is tender but eager, he kneads at her. His thumb grazes over her vulva, which is hot and damp and responsive to his touch.

As he provides these mesmerizing ministrations, Vanessa reaches down to remove the last of his shirts so his broad chest is finally bare. The night before they had come unto each other in darkness, but tonight by the light of the fire, and the still glowing lights, she can see everything. She grips his shoulders which are thick with muscle, but smooth to touch. Her hands stroke his neck, his back, his chest, everywhere they can find. He is so much older than any of the elegant boys with whom she’s shared her body, and it is strange to find the gray of his hair and beard between her legs against her creamy, youthful complexion.

She widens her seat on the bed and leans back to allow him access. He’s tugged her chemise down to her ankles, so she sits completely nude before him. He raises his head to fully admire her. Their eyes meet across the great divide of age and grief and hate and pain, and for a moment they are frozen, trapped in that yearning, unable to speak or move for fear of things they cannot even name.

She arches her back, and in doing so nudges herself toward him as though an offering. With a lusty grunt, he lowers his head again and runs his tongue over her center, parting her folds and tasting her silken sex. Even before the wet of his tongue, she is slick, and tastes sweet, like a lovely custard. He puts a hand on each of her thighs to force her to open more for him, and he laps at her with a hunger he fears will never be satisfied. She threads her fingers into his hair and helps set a rhythm. She undulates her hips and rides his tongue, and his kisses scorch her, but she holds back. When he draws circles around her clit with his tongue, she gasps and clutches the mattress with both hands. There is a nearing of ecstasy that swirls in her belly with a luminescent glow. She finds herself closer and closer to the edge, but then he slips two fingers into her. She clenches once around him and then lets go so suddenly and helplessly she cries out.

Immediately, he rises and lies down with her on the bed. He holds her as he wriggles out of his pants, and then lies atop her. She clings to him, and he enters her as she rides out her first orgasm. He feels her inner muscles spasm around him and he arches back to thrust himself further in, longing to feel every little jolt of her electricity. He moves in her. She wraps her legs around his hips and urges him deeper. His body, heavy and hard on hers, pushes her into the mattress with a gentle but unyielding pressure as one might press a seed into soft soil.

He kisses her deeply and breathes fast as he fucks her. He moans, and puts an arm under her knee, desperate to bring them closer. Vanessa tastes salt and realizes he is crying. He is silently sobbing in her mouth as he drives himself into her again and again. Fingers splayed over his back, she holds him, as she did the day after Mina died. They cry and fuck and never for one moment stop kissing. She squeezes herself around him, pulsating in ways that are bringing her back to the edge. She wants to come with him. She can feel him getting close too, and although part of her urgently wants the relief of pleasure, she also never wants it to end.

 _What would it be like_ , she wonders, _to cease to exist in this moment right now, so I never have to live another moment that is not this?_

And though they die together, it is only the little death that kills them, and only momentarily in all its rapturous glory. Right before he finishes, he slows his pace so he barely moves in her. His slow slide in and out of her is more than she can bear. He pulls all the way out and rubs his head over her throbbing clit so she starts to climax with a delighted gasp. She grabs his ass and forces him back deep inside of her so she can continue to come all over him. He resumes a faster pace and within a few enthusiastic strokes, she feels the repeated spurts of his hot release as he groans and sighs and sucks her lower lip.

For some time after, he stays inside her and lies atop her. When at last he softens enough to slip out of her, he rolls off to her right side but keeps a leg thrown over her hips and his head tucked on her chest. He plays with one breast and lazily suckles at the other. She strokes his head. His words are a surprise when he finally tilts his head up to catch her eyes. “I suppose I owe you an apology, my dear.”

“What? For what?”

“Never in my life have I become so undone during intimate congress as to, uh, well, cry. I urge you not to take it personally in any way. I imagine it’s not at all normal.”

“It will please me to take it personally in every way,” Vanessa says. She cradles his head and kisses it. “Anyway, I’ve decided being normal is highly overrated.”

“Yes,” he sighs. “Perhaps.” His breath breezes across her and she shivers, but not because she is cold. Regardless, he sits up to gather the blankets and pulls them over their bodies. The clock chimes and it is still rather early, but it feels so late. “Are you hungry? I could go down and get us something from the kitchen. I’m certain Sembene has left sustenance.”

“No,” she says and curls against him. He opens his arms and takes her, tucks her head down on his chest.

“Are you sure?”

“I am sure. Stay with me. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Not such a solitary creature after all?” His voice strokes her forehead.

“No,” she sighs. “Perhaps not.”

The wind howls outside. It sounds like it might storm, like when they wake there might be a thick, sparkling blanket of snow. “Listen to that wind blow,” he says.

“It sounds strong enough to blow someone right off the face of the earth,” Vanessa says and clings tighter to him.

“Are you frightened?”

“No. Not right here and not right now. But that idea of going someplace warm does sound appealing.”

“I’ll contact my agent in the morning and begin the preparations.” He kisses the top of her head and pulls the covers up higher over her shoulders.

For a while there is silence but for the wind and the crackle of the fire. It seems they will sleep.

“I must know something.” Vanessa’s voice breaks the silence. She looks up at him.

“What is it?”

“Is there any part of you that still hates me?”

He sighs as though his heart is very heavy. “No, Vanessa. No.”

“Do you remember it? Hating me?”

“In a way. It is like a memory trapped in amber and buried deep under time. And I don’t want to remember that feeling. Not anymore.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he says and kisses her forehead. “Close your eyes, my dear.” She obeys his soft voice. She follows the rhythm of his breath and heart into a dream where she continues to search for that thing that eludes her.

Old habits die hard.

If they die at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my take on this dark, twisted ship. Please feel free to comment. I live for comments and try to respond to everyone. . .


End file.
